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Natsuyuki Rendezvous: Complete Season Review

Natsuyuki Rendezvous is a fantastic short season show that covers many ranges of feelings, and looks at what real devotion is. It’s a story of love and death and is a josei anime that shouldn’t be missed.
To start off, the premise of the show is that Hazuki-kun, a young man falls in love with Rokka-chan, an older woman who owns a flower shop in his area. He starts to work for her and finds that, she’s had a trouble passed. She’s been married once before, and the ghost of her dead husband still follows her around. To complicate matters, Hazuki-kun is the only one who can see him.

I really feel like the overall concept of this show is very strong, since it deals with issues of unrequited love, can you love more then once, after death, is it ok for feelings to change, and other thought provoking topics. It poses these questions and explores different outcomes. Thematically, it’s a very strong piece.

The art is very well done as well. The character designs match the image of the common Josei, and the overall animation is smooth with very little hiccups. Interesting note here, I was really excited to see an episode that took place about 10 feet away from where I was staying in Tokyo this summer. It was a very surreal to see animated characters walking around in an animated version of what was familiar to me.

The opening and ending were fairly good, but I preferred the ending, which rarely happens for me. Maybe it’s cause of the very 1999 vibe the ending carries, but it was a better fit for me then the slightly annoying opening song. It has that very smooth sad singing I would want for a show that is as bittersweet as Natsuyuki Rendezvous.

The actual ending of this show did feel a little rushed, and there is a very large gap of time at the end of the show that felt like an uncomfortable epilogue, not quite Harry Potter tier, but still rather uncomfortable.

Overall, this show was a very strong performer and wrapped up rather neatly. I would definitely give it a go if you’re looking for a quick bittersweet romance story. It’s a little more adult then the normal romance show on tv (because it is a Josei afterall).